Friday, 4 November 2016

[BLOG] “Your lifeless body falls on the floor of the deathtrap dungeon”

This phrase has become our standard send-off to the
character who has just bought the farm, and it is part of our standard ritual
for such things. The GM then asks for the character sheet, and marks it with a
cross, as well as the date and cause of death. The players recall the character’s
mighty deeds (if they can at least recall his name), then we jump back to the
action. Note that it is “the deathtrap dungeon”, used as an appellative instead
of a vocative.

The character sheets of the slain start to pile up in
the various campaign dossiers (although sometimes the players ask for them as a
keepsake – I always grant this request), and even if they were very short-lived,
the ways they died can often be more memorable than the entire lives of some
characters who have not done much from the safety of the back ranks. That’s why
Fighter So-and-so is a forgotten footnote, but Ratomil the Rogue is a legend. Ratomil joined the party in a
caravanserai, and died ten minutes later in an ill-fated break-in attempt – in
the first round of his first combat before he could even gain initiative. Cause
of death, illusionary smoke serpents.

I fondly remember my first nameless fighter, created in 1991 or 1992 for Harc és Varázslat (Combat and
Magic), the first Hungarian RPG system. We went into the orc-infested mines,
and my fighter was killed by orcs in one of the early combats. I was stoked. A friend of mine relates a story
where he first visited the town RPG club as a kid, and his mother came to pick
him up in the evening.

“How did it go,
sweetie?”

“My character
was tied between horses and torn apart limb from limb!”

“Um... Are you
sure you want to come play these games next time?”

“Hell yes!”

Splat

And so on and so forth. There was the time we played
the randomly stocked example dungeon in the back of the 3rd edition
PHB, which was basically filled with much, much more powerful encounters than a
beginning party was supposed to handle, and all characters were splatted by
ogres, burnt to cinders by hell hounds, or just plain slaughtered by orcs with
greataxes doing 1d12+4 Hp damage a hit. The only character who survived did so
because he had taken non-lethal subdual damage, and only fell unconscious
instead of getting killed like the rest of us. In a later session, I rolled up a ridiculously
powerful bugbear monk with 32 Hp (this was a brief phase where we were trying
how ridiculous we could get with characters), and after a few minor encounters,
a greataxe-wielding orc dealt me a critical hit for 36 points of damage,
knocking me from 22 to -14 Hp. The same session, the rest of the party encountered a shambling
mound in a pit, which killed them to the last man; then they sent in a relief
party to bring back their meagre treasure and equipment, and the shambling
mound killed them to the last man, again.

Things got less wild after a while. Player skill and GM
familiarity are a real thing, and while death is still a constant threat in our
games, it is much less common than even ten years ago. Perhaps we have also mellowed
with age (although, honestly, I want to kill many, many more real-life people than
I used to). But at long last, we are back.

In addition to our regular campaign, we are also
playing a Kazamaták és Kompániák
game, basically an OD&D clone. We started with Palace of the Silver Princess (the infamous banned version with all
the BDSM undertones and sexual references*), took a detour to Night of the Walking Wet (the players decided it was too tough for
them, and pulled out), and are now adventuring in Castle Xyntillan. These adventures are ultra-fast, casual and very bloody
– while actual PCs are somewhat shielded from death by the rules and by being
mostly in the middle ranks, hired companions are falling left and right. In
fact, the characters have become so infamous in the small mountain town of
Tours-en-Savoy that only the most disreputable never-do-wells and dregs of society
are willing to join up with them. (Credit must go to Narmor, who has gone
through more than half of the poor NPCs who have never returned from Xyntillan.)

Here, then, is the roster of characters who have
adventured in Castle Xyntillan so far – emphasis on “so far”. Some spoilers are
included.

==========================================================

The Survivors (in order of joining the campaign,
bold entries are main characters while others are companions)

==========================================================

Koloman, Fighter
2 (played by the same guy whose first character got torn
apart by horses all those years ago; this time, the character survived, and
left the campaign)

Pontius of the
Leeches, Thief 5 (another PoSP vet, he has killed party members via trying
to cure them with leeches)

Whale’s Eye the
Tartar, Fighter 1 (promoted from a companion, left after
realising how many hirelings were dying in the party’s service)

Reinhart of Metz, the Dweller, Cleric 2 (Catholic priest and crusader; trapped for multiple
sessions within Xyntillan by a holy quest to kill at least five family members,
now the proud owner of a powerful magic cloak and shield, rendering him almost
impossible to hit)

Juan, heavy footman (retired from adventuring after
saving up a tidy little sum)

Sigurd, Fighter
1

Tancred, Cleric
1 (converted to Satanism after donning a helm of opposite alignment)

Vito, Halfling 1

Me’tharyll, Elf
1

Villon the Wine
Poet, Magic-User 1 (minstrel, managed to become friends with Count
Giscard deVourey-Malévol and convinced him to refrain from drinking their blood)

Raynald of
Chatillon, Fighter 2 (promoted from a companion just in time to inherit the
stuff left behind by Anastas)

Danton, heavy footman

==========================================================

The Crypt Level

==========================================================

Luther, heavy footman (cross-dresser, went down in a
hail of arrows in first encounter after refusing to pay entrance fee to Gilbert
Malévol the Fox & company)

Francois, cuirassier (went down in a hail of arrows)

Wilhelm, bowman (went down in a hail of arrows)

Karl, light footman (killed by skeletons in a burning
side building while holding off attacking bandits)

4 comments:

It's also worth noting that Vito and Me’tharyll left with the elf being in love with the halfling, thanks to a potion. I can't remember though: is Reinhart's cloak the same my cleric wore before turning to Satanism?